Hunting Snakes
by JoetheGrim
Summary: 'A short one-shot in which Harry finds everything he wanted, inside himself.' Knowledge of both universes recommended. No characters from Bleach are going to make an appearance here, though some people are modeled after characters from Bleach. Rated M for tiny pieces of Gore.


If you were to ask the senior members of the Dursley family what they thought of Harry Potter, and have them tell you the truth, they would say:

'Too smart for his own good', in the case of Petunia Dursley,

or 'Too damn smart' in the case of Vernon Dursley.

And they would be partially right, because even at the age of 5 years old young Harry had managed to teach himself how to read, write, speak and many other things, only by watching his 'guardians' as they were known in the legal system.

There was much more to little Harry than they knew, of course they suspected his magical powers, but no one would expect the power that the mind of a child can have when it needs a friend.

Because of the way his parents died, and the way he 'defeated' their killer, his powers were more unusual than those of other witches and wizards his age.

A normal magical child would show some accidental magic every once in a while, making its parents both happy and stressed from all the running around.

But Harry was much different, because of the constant psychological abuse with occasional physical abuse thrown in, his mind cracked; not an unbelievable thing, since it has already been home to a fragment of a soul.

So his mind cracked, and with it, his powers did too. And they _reacted_.

They reacted to his loneliness by giving him a friend.

They reacted to his weakness by giving him strength.

They reacted to all his desires by giving him a chance to fulfill them.

Now all they needed to do was to tell him.

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and found himself standing. That was strange, he remembered being in the hallway moments ago. Was this a day dream of sorts?

He looked around.

He couldn't see much, there was grass all around him, and it was tall, very tall, not as tall as uncle, but tall enough to block his view.

He could see some trees all around and they were filled with leaves, nothing like any tree he ever saw.

The sky looked normal, a few clouds and... no sun? How was there so much light if there was no sun?

There was a faint whisper and he walked forward, through the grass that swayed slightly, as if it was making a path for him. Soon enough, the grass became shorter and he could see ahead of him. He stopped in what seemed to be the center, the grass was now only to around his hips and everywhere around him it went higher.

He waited.

There was slight movement to his right, he turned.

A woman, older than him by at least ten years was walking through the grass. She didn't make any sounds as she moved, and her eyes were constantly on him.

She looked a bit strange, long black hair completely straight and neatly kept. Pristine white dress with long sleeves that hid her hands. Green eyes that he saw in the mirror whenever he was allowed near one.

She stopped walking and he noticed that she was hiding the lower half of her face with her left sleeve, he could only see her eyes.

He asked her who she was and her face changed slightly, he imagined that she was smiling at him.

* * *

At 7 years old, Harry hadn't changed much, he was still scrawny, quiet and brilliant.

He had gone through all the dictionaries and encyclopedias that were in the Dursley household twice already and was looking for more interesting books. That was what the Dursleys knew.

What they didn't know was that he often went to the grassy plains to talk with the woman that reminded him of a snake.

What he found out over time was that he was special, unique, the first of his kind. And she was there with him, a friend forever.

He finally had someone to talk to, someone that would be there.

Of course, there was also a bad side to all of it, with the discovery of his first and only friend, also came the knowledge of his parents in the most painful way possible, constant nightmares.

He would re-live the moments of his parents deaths every night, seeing it in the same way every time; once awake, his scar would bring him mind-numbing pain for the next few hours.

He had asked the woman if there was anything that could be done to stop the nightmares. He knew that there was a connection between the woman and the nightmares, but if it meant keeping his only friend, he would gladly suffer through the pain every night.

She had told him that he needed to become stronger before she would tell him what could be done.

So he put his trust in her.

He did what she told him would make him stronger, concentration exercises and other things that had seemingly no connection to each other.

* * *

At 8 years old, he understood more.

He understood more of his powers and more of the world around him.

The woman had finally told him what he would need to do to stop the pain. It wasn't as important to him, he had grown used to it by now. But he had learned a while ago, that all that pain was felt by her too. And if not for himself, he would do it for her. Because he could see it in her eyes, that she never got used to the pain.

So he prepared to leave the Dursley family.

He needed to find someone who could destroy the soul fragment inside him, and he also needed to make sure that the other soul fragments were destroyed. That way, the man that killed his parents wouldn't cause pain to anyone else.

* * *

The early 1989 was cold, but luckily without snow. Harry walked away from the Dursley residence without looking back once.

* * *

As time passed, he needed less and less food. He could also handle the elements fairly well. He was certain that he would never need to come back to that house. He could live with his friend in the wilderness.

He used his new skills to disappear from the street with only a slight sound and appear on the chimney of a house a few streets further.

He hadn't thought of a name for that particular skill yet, there was no need.

Next objective was to find a place where he could bring a manifestation of his friend into the world, he didn't know how that would work exactly, but there was only one way to find out, since she wouldn't tell him anything.

* * *

After two months of wandering the country with his partner things started to change for him.

She had appeared in the form of a short, single-edged sword with a light-blue wrapping at the hilt and a guard that resembled the letter 'S'. He had learned how to use a blade fairly quickly, mostly hunting smaller animals. There were also times when he had to develop spells additional to the ones he had thought of when he was with the Dursleys.

He had split the spells apart into two categories, the ones meant to harm, and the ones that are meant for everything else.

He didn't have names for all of them yet, so he numbered them.

So far, he had 33 destructive spells and 63 binding ones, he didn't feel the need to develop further spells, especially since he needed to come up with incantations for them, and that was boring.

He had managed to sneak into the town of Little Hangleton and get rid of the soul fragment there, though it did bring him a lot of pain and he suspected that the owner of the fragments felt it too. He would have to hurry getting rid of the rest of them.

Right now he was headed towards the house that had the locket he had seen. He had found the locations by using the fragment inside him and a tracking spell he developed. Getting to the one in Albania would be difficult.

* * *

The forest he was in right now didn't seem different from other forests he saw in the real world.

Suddenly, he could feel some people appear out of thin air at the edge of the forest, and they felt different from the occasional hunter or poacher that he found in the woods so far.

He used the binding spell number 26 to make himself invisible on a tall branch and waited there.

It didn't take long for his would-be hunters to catch up, at most an hour, they stopped under the tree and looked around. They spoke of a man called Dumbledore, finding Harry and ensuring his safety.

Harry didn't really care for safety.

They had a way of tracking him and he would need to study it, to make sure they couldn't do it again.

Those wooden sticks they carried like weapons seemed to be the key.

Harry dropped from the tree to the ground behind them without a sound. Without even a whisper from him, he made them all drop to the ground with their limbs locked up. One by one, he put them to sleep using another spell and started studying the sticks they carried. There wasn't much he found out and eventually he broke the spell of sleep and left.

He would just have to outrun them.

* * *

It had proven quite difficult finding a way inside the house that could hide itself. But with a few days of observing he managed to break in.

Once inside he almost got caught by a small creature that kept muttering while walking all over the place.

He took the locket and left, moving to a safe place and preforming the ritual that would destroy the soul inside it.

There was less pain this time and he was glad for that. Making sure he was alone once again, he started drawing a circle on the ground.

"In the north is the eye, in the east is the heart, in the west is the finger, in the south is the foot; gathered by wind and scattered by rain...The tracking sparrows, Binding spell number 58."

Now he had to decide which of the fragments was next.

There was one deep underground, on piles of gold. One was in a hidden room in a castle, one was in a book in a mansion, another in a snake and the last one was in a man with a turban that was in... France? That was the main one, he felt the pain too and was now coming to see what was happening.

Harry decided to wait for the mans move.

* * *

In the next half-a-year, Harry noticed that the fragments were taken from their positions and brought to a single place, the mansion where the book fragment was. Every fragment except the diadem was at the mansion. And that meant that he would have to sneak into the castle and take that fragment before going for the rest of them.

He acknowledged the difficulty of doing such a thing, but didn't see the point in over-thinking it.

In the next month while traveling to the castle, he met his first real enemy.

Another man with a wooden stick that was after him. This one underestimated him, so Harry pretended to be lucky and avoided his attacks, trying to learn as much as he could from them.

He found out several things.

Firstly, these people were wizards with wands.

Secondly, a weak binding spell doesn't work as well when the target is filled with adrenaline.

Thirdly, without a wand, a wizard is not much of a threat.

And lastly, they left the fragment in the castle as a trap.

He couldn't make himself kill the man, but he could cut of his hand at the wrist, and that's what he did in the end, leaving the man alive.

Harry hurried by using every method of traveling quickly he knew and was close to the castle by nightfall.

There weren't many people inside, only a few older ones. Harry decided now was as good as time as any.

Getting through the various shields and blocks around the castle was very difficult and he suspected that the ones inside the castle had noticed someone going through them. He kept going anyway.

There wasn't anyone in the main corridor beyond the front door, though they did group up in a big hall on one end of the castle.

He opened the door and silently hurried through the corridors toward the place where he would probably find the hidden diadem.

* * *

Dumbledore didn't know what exactly was happening but he did know that there was only one intruder and that all the professors could be trusted.

Voldemort probably could force his way into the castle, but why? What did he plan on accomplishing by doing so?

The intruder entered the castle and... ran the other way. That was not expected. Dumbledore thought he would rush into the Great Hall and start firing curses everywhere.

He quickly gathered everyone and led them in pursuit of Voldemort, who was now loose in Hogwarts.

* * *

Harry had spent the last several minutes running in circles, it was supposed to be right _here_. He had detected a powerful block in place that separated the room from the castle, but there had to be a way to get in.

He kept telling himself that it needed to be now.

And then a door appeared just as a group of people ran around the corner. Luckily he was hidden from them by his spell, but they saw the door open, close, and then disappear.

Harry hurried to find the fragment and destroy it.

* * *

Dumbledore was perplexed, there shouldn't have been a door there. This time, they were the ones going in circles, trying to find the intruder.

This was not something he needed in his old age; first young Harry disappears, then Voldemort returns, albeit only in a weakened form, and now an intruder in Hogwarts.

Harry found the diadem quickly and performed the ritual as fast as he could, the pain was even less this time.

The people outside were still searching, he quickly did the tracking spell and found all the fragments in the same place, that mansion... the man in the turban was screaming in pain, was the destruction of the fragment still hurting him? Good.

Now he had to get out of the room and the castle.

They found the way in. Good, now he could sneak out... hopefully.

* * *

They came in one by one, looking warily around the huge room, trying to find the threat.

Summoning the invisibility cloak they believed the intruder was using wasn't successful. So they guarded the door in a group.

Harry was above them, walking on air while invisible, trying to decide who needed to be put to sleep for him to escape.

The most powerful person there was the old guy with the beard. There was just enough room between the old guy and the still-open door for Harry to slip out of the room. So he took the chance and slowly got behind the old wizard. The others were still close and he didn't want to risk anything, he had just turned around to leave when a powerful force hit him in the upper back.

He flew through the corridor and out of the room, the old man noticed him and fired a powerful spell at close range. Luckily, Harry managed to stabilize himself mid-flight and land on his feet, a few dozen meters away from the now assembled group of wizards and witches.

He drew his sword and turned around to face them quickly. He felt a few drops of blood drip from his nose.

In the dark, not much could be seen when it came to faces, but Dumbledore could clearly see that he didn't hit Voldemort just now. He whispered a Lumos spell and the light shone at the intruder.

The staff gasped collectively once they saw the boy. It was Harry Potter. The green eyes and the scar were giveaways of that, but Dumbledore concentrated on the sword and other details of his appearance, the ragged clothes and the longer hair.

"Harry, is that you?"

"...Why do you know my name?"

Dumbledore silenced everyone on his side of the corridor.

"That is a long story, and it is not the kind of a story meant to be discussed in a situation such as this. My turn to ask questions. Why did you break into Hogwarts?"

Harry thought long and hard about the consequences of telling this man anything, in the end he decided to risk it and try to get some answers out of all this.

"...I'm hunting for the soul fragments. Whose side are you on?"

Dumbledore was close to showing his surprise at the fact that Harry knew about the Horcruxes, but he managed to keep calm.

"I represent the side of light and the ones who oppose Lord Voldemort. How do you know about them?"

"...They cause us pain. Is this Lord Voldemort the one who made them?"

"Yes, who is 'us'?"

By this time the rest of the staff held their wands at their side, but still pointed at Harry, and watched the exchange.

Harry too was less vary now, they didn't attack, and their body language didn't show any hostility.

"I was alone, one day uncle hit me too hard and I passed out, since then I haven't been alone."

The staff showed it's shock and disgust, while one of them glared briefly at the old man.

Harry thought about his next question.

"...Do you plan on letting me leave this place?"

Dumbledore looked at Harry's eyes. Severus was probably in trance right now, so much like his mothers eyes...

"I would prefer it if we were to sit down and discuss more. Will you stay here?"

Harry understood the message, the old man didn't want to fight, but he would if it meant keeping Harry here.

"I can't, I have to destroy the other fragments. Why do you want to protect me?"

"There are reasons that I do not wish to speak of right now. Why do you have to destroy them?"

"To stop the nightmares and the pain. I don't have any questions."

Harry shifted his stance slightly, to be ready for a quick getaway.

"Nightmares?"

"It will be over soon, they're all in the same place; maybe I won't have to see them die every night anymore."

And then he disappeared with only a slight sound.

* * *

Within several days, Harry was near the mansion that held the last pieces of the puzzle.

As expected, the nightmares were less intense and the pain was more manageable with less fragments existing, but there were still three of them and the real one.

Right now he was making a plan on how to proceed.

There were several things he needed to take into account, all the people inside the mansion, the people that were spying on the mansion from the outside, which were probably sent by the old man, the fragments, and the barriers around the mansion.

Just going through the barriers would take too long... but he could use that.

It would probably be best to destroy the fragments before facing Voldemort, and destroying them before they knew he was here was probably the best course of action.

For the next few days, he analyzed the barriers around the mansion and kept track of all the fragments. In about a week he had started developing a special spell.

Usually, the ritual that gets rid of the fragment buries that part of the soul, this new spell could affect all fragments in a given space, and the space he would choose was everything under those barriers.

A day later he noticed something.

They were doing a ritual of sorts, they had captured someone and used them in a ritual. He couldn't see much, but what he did see brought pain to his scar, Voldemort did a ritual and changed his form, now looking more like a human snake.

Harry didn't like this but he had to go on with the plan.

* * *

Lord Voldemort was in a bad mood, not unusual for the last few months.

There was just so much he didn't know about the current situation.

Of course, he had manipulated the world perfectly.

The people were panicking, his followers were returning to him, and no one knew where Harry Potter was... including him.

That last one was bothering him.

But he did know where little Harry would eventually show up. At the Malfoy manor, where he currently was with all his Horcruxes.

One of his follower had even managed to put a news reporter under the Imperio curse; tomorrow they would infiltrate the Daily Prophet and gather information there.

His train of thought was interrupted by a great noise from the outside.

He felt his Horcruxes fade away and then the pain hit him.

* * *

Harry hurried through the temporary crack in the barriers and stood inside, he stood through the pain and continued towards the mansion.

The people inside were scrambling, the ones on the outside of the barrier were trying to contact Dumbledore. Harry kept going, the barriers were charged with a lot of his energy, it would take a while before they fell.

He had managed to enter the mansion without trouble. That was when the battle began.

He waited for the wands to be pointed at him before disappearing from sight and wounding his enemies from behind. He didn't kill anyone, but he made sure they couldn't get up. Having read a few anatomy encyclopedias, he knew how to do just that.

Just five minutes later, only a few people were left in the house: Voldemort, a civilian that seemed to bee recovering from mind control, a few of those same creatures with big ears and a kid his age.

The kid was put to sleep, the creatures stayed out of the way and the reporter didn't want to be put to sleep.

Harry continued on his way and got to the door that held Voldemort inside.

* * *

Dumbledore was at the Malfoy manor 5 minutes after it all began. Most professors and every remaining member of the Order of Phoenix were there with him.

They tried to collapse the wards but it went slowly.

Then, there was an explosion in the manor and someone was blown outwards. It was Harry.

Right after him was Lord Voldemort and he looked angry.

They then noticed Dumbledore and the rest of them. Harry gave them only a single look before focusing on his target.

Dumbledore noticed that Harry had quite a few cuts and bruises now, though Voldemort had a few too.

Voldemort was really angry now, almost to the point that his anger got the better of him. But he calmed himself down, they were outside now, he would kill the little pest and then retreat, his followers were gone but he would return the blow by killing their precious little Boy-who-lived.

They began their dance again. Harry would use that wandless magic of his and Voldemort would either bat it away or dodge it and return fire. Harry dodged most of it, only getting caught with glancing blows.

Voldemort grew impatient and thought of a plan. The first wards to fall will be the anti-apparition ones, he could use that.

Harry kept his focus, never letting his eyes wander from his enemy, yet keeping track of everyone else.

Dumbledore collapsed a part of the barrier and Voldemort smiled maniacally. Harry tensed. Voldemort disappeared and appeared behind him with a silent popping noise. Harry was about to turn around when he heard the words 'Avada Kedavra'.

The pain hit him in the upper back and his body jerked forward. Then he blinked and noticed that he was in his inner world.

* * *

Dumbledore watched with wide eyes the green spell impact Harry.

* * *

Voldemort had a smile on his face as soon as he had appeared behind Harry.

* * *

In Harry's inner world, time was flowing differently, right now he fought against a shadow, the soul fragment that was stuck inside him, he supposed. But it was weak; he would win. And she promised to tell him her name once he won.

* * *

Once outside of his inner world Harry kept his momentum, he spun around and swung his sword once, the wand was cut in half.

He swung the second time, this time yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Perforo, Vipera!"

His sword changed shape in an instant, becoming longer in size by several of its lengths.

Voldemort was cut into two pieces from shoulder to hip, the last thing he saw was a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt that bled black.

* * *

_Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, kills He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_

_A special report from an eyewitness, one of our own reporters!_

That, and other stories concerning Harry were the main topic of most conversations for the next months. Harry became a lot more popular than before.

Some of those stories were about his skill, some were about the possibility that Sirius Black could be innocent, since they had found Peter Pettigrew in the Malfoy Manor.

Upper parts of society discussed the Malfoys 'surprising' support of the Dark Lord.

As for Harry, he had been taken to Hogwarts right after the wards over the Malfoy manor had collapsed. He didn't mind being taken anywhere; he felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted off of him.

In the next few days he had been examined and reexamined countless times by Madam Pomfrey.

Dumbledore questioned him about his powers and Harry told him most of the things he discovered about them.

Around a week later, he was called to the Ministry to give his account of things and 'defend himself' against the accusations of murder. Dumbledore said that they would not dare convict him of murdering Voldemort since even if it was true it would be bad for publicity.

In about a week time, things calmed down and Dumbledore sent Harry to live with the Weasleys for now; since the reporter saw Dumbledore and the professors taking Harry away, Hogwarts had been besieged by reporters wanting an interview with Harry.

* * *

Harry sort of liked the Weasley family. Of course, they were wary of him, after all, he was a confirmed killer.

Ron tried to ignore that after exhausting all questions he had about the subject. Ginny was incredibly shy and a bit frightened of his somewhat cold personality. Fred and George took it upon themselves to make him into a prankster since they had heard of his strange abilities.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were of course the ones most careful around him, since they were both there when he killed Voldemort.

Nevertheless, he acted his best around them, since he was certain that this setup was only temporary and they were doing it as a favor to Dumbledore.

* * *

AN: This was another thing just flying around in my head, I got rid of it now (hopefully, since there's room for a follow up, but not much though.)

I guess you could look at this as a comment on any sort of a crossover between universes with different power limits. Characters in HP have an insta-kill spell that's forbidden, Bleach has stuff that destroys entire cities in an instant and the maximum power limit is still climbing.

What I'm saying is, when you do a crossover, the bad guy needs to get something too, in this case it was Harry's inexperience and young age, though it wasn't enough to keep the story rolling for long.

A bit more on the story.

If you haven't noticed, The spells Harry uses are the Kido spells from Bleach, only slightly different.

His sword is a copy of Shinso (Ichimaru Gin) with only slightly different powers and name.

The spirit of his sword is actually a copy of Sung-Sun, but with black hair, no mask fragment and no pink makeup (and a different personality, though there wasn't much chance for me to show that).

I can't think of anything else to add here, I hope you enjoyed it. And as usual, reviews are the way to go if you have something to say.


End file.
